We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Confidence Omenai a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Confidence, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

I do not believe I could experience happiness or joy if I weren’t an artist. Creativity is my connection to source. It is how light fills me and how I light up the dark. I am a Nigerian American artist who has been a single parent and amassed student loans educating myself. While living through a dual pandemic, having a “regular job” isn’t something I wonder about. A regular job is often a forgone conclusion for creatives of color who don’t always get paid what they are worth. I never wonder if I need a regular job. I know the amount of income that I need to thrive, and I go get it.

I believe when asking the question “Do you wonder what it would be like to have a regular job?” we must thoroughly examine what a luxury it would be for many artists to receive a sufficient income from their art alone. Many artists here aren’t wondering because they already have a regular job. If they didn’t, they couldn’t survive in this city. The most successful artists I know are working an average of 65 hours a week and juggling multiple contracts. Don’t get me started on how we define success. We have insurance licenses, teaching certificates, and many are staff at your favorite underfunded non-profits. Artists tend to find unconventional means to create and sustain ourselves.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started journaling at the age of 9. I remember buying my first journal 5th grade year, from a Scholastic Book Fair.  I wrote poems in it. I knew that I was born to write. I write across genres. Poetry, playwriting, children’s books, and memoir are my strengths. I spent 10 years as a slam poet competing nationally before I transitioned to playwriting and voice acting.

What I’m most proud of is my willingness to tackle new artforms and mediums. In March of 2023, my first multimedia art exhibit will debut at The Leon Gallery. 2022 changed me on a cellular level and as an artist. Grief is alchemy. As painful as transformation can be, death becomes me. I am looking forward to reintroducing myself and my art to the world.

My work in all its forms challenges those who engage with it to light the funeral pyre beneath their worst selves. Dance in the flames, knowing that what rises from the ashes will be indestructible.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I have to create as much as I have to breathe. It is what I do. I need to express myself through art. I have to make sense of my experiences and the collective experience using these concepts and ideas that flow through me. I also have a belief in my core that there are thousands of women who come from broken places that look like what I left behind. They need to know that we can do more than survive. I have always felt the need to be a beacon light or blueprint. I am proof that you can come from nothing, have nothing and survive anything. My goal is to amplify my voice and my story, so that the rebellion in my bones resonates far and wide. I want my work to quicken the dead in spirit and reach anyone in doubt about their ability to get up again. I want them to understand what I clawed my way out of and decide if she could do it, I could do it and rise.

I’m also driven by the desire to ensure there is enough financial wealth for my great granddaughters to be rebellious until the earth stops spinning. I want them to be able to defend and protect themselves and our lineage long after I’m gone. I never want them to be at the mercy of men with hungry mouths and wounded spirits like I was. Money doesn’t buy happiness but it does buy ammo and options. I intend to leave my lineage with plenty of both.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

For many years I thought I had less value than my friends who had MFAs, and PHDs. I felt less than everyone around me as a writer even when I had accomplished more simply because I had no degree. While everyone was attending college, I was raising my four children. I had to simultaneously unpack years of trauma as quickly as possible to avoid traumatizing another generation. I stood on finals stages, taught in colleges, museums, high schools next to the best and felt unworthy. I wouldn’t apply for opportunities simply because I judged myself as less than because I was laboring under the misapprehension that I needed a degree to really be a professional artist. I was at The Pink Door Writing Retreat in June of 2017 and a poet spoke truth that sat in my spirit. She shared that many moons ago, she also felt less than others with degrees. Fireside she and a group of women I will love for all eternity validated my work and my worth outside of academia. If I never gained a degree, I was worthy of every award, win, accolade, fellowship, a monster on a mic, a savage with a pen and a consummate professional. I been brilliance unboxed and the only one that needed convincing was me. My talent and experience were merit enough. I am worthy of success, abundant monetary compensation, and the respect that has always been on my name. I unlearned allowing anyone or anything to define or devalue me. I have unlearned playing small or occupying spaces that cannot accommodate the fullness of me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.onlyconfidence.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onlyconfi/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/confi.omenai/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/onlyconfi

Image Credits
Bask and Come on if you Coming credit Jeremy Pape